Improvement in the process of bating hides



NITEI) STATES PATENT p OFFICE.

ILLIAM ZOLLICKOFFEB, OF MIDDLEBURG, MARYLAND.

IMPROVEMENT .IN THE PROCESS OF BATlNG HIDES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 2,756, dated August 18, 1842.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, WILLIAM ZOLLIGKOF- FER, of Middleburg, in the county of Carroll and State of Maryland, have-invented a new and useful Improvement in the Composition of Matter for Eating all Descriptions of Hides and Skins; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description.

The nature of my invention consists in using, in combination,the muriate of soda, supertartrate of potassa and tartaric acid as a bate for hating all descriptions of hides and skins, with which I hate them in a very superior manner.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention, I will proceed to de scribe the mode of preparing it, the manner of using it, and its operation.

I take two pounds of the muriate of soda, one pound of supertartrate of potas sa, and half of a pound of tartaric acid, all of which I throw together in a suitable vessel, and upon which I pour five gallons of boiling water to dissolve them. As soon as this is effected I throw the solution, while hot, into a clean vat containing a sufficient quantity of clean water to cover live. hundred pounds of hides or skins (equivalen t toapack,d ry weight)alread y haired, fleshed, and washed in a pool of clean water. I then agitate the fluid to mix the water and the dissolved composition thoroughly together. Into the hate I have thus prepared I throwthe quantity of hides or skins already specified, and in the condition just named, to be bated. Skins smaller than calt skins 1 take out of this hate in half an hour and stone and beam them: Calf-skins I remove in half an hour,

Before I put the hides and skins into the bark I wash them off in a pool of clean water. Then they w ill be prepared for the action of the tannin. If hides and skins cannot be conveniently worked out of this bate in t orty-eight hours, they will not sustain theleast injury, as this process is a preventive to the putrefactive condition by which hides and skins become often entirely destroyed by the hates in common use. With this hating process hides and -skins are reduced and softened in a superior manner, so as to enable the operator to work out the hair, dirt, and lime with great ease, and the grain side, gelatine, and general texture of them not being impaired, the leather prepared after its operation is equally flexible, more compact, and ponderous than that prepared a'fter the bates in common use, which act upon the principle of putret'action.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-- The application of the muriate of soda, supertartrate of potassa, and tartaric acid as a bate for hating all descriptions of hides and skins, as herein described.

WM. ZOLLIOKOFFER.

\Vitnesses:

J OHN CLABAUGH, E. A. OLABAUGH. 

